How To Ace The Interview Before It Even Starts

Here are a handful of interview prep steps to help you feel confident for your interview and impress your interviewer!

Intro:

Hi everyone!! For those who haven’t been to my blog Apart From Blonde, my name is Jess, I’m a recent computer science grad, and I’m passionate about increasing confidence beyond the surface around typically intimidating topics!

On the professional side of my blog, I’m working to provide tools to allow young adults to confidently face common professional milestones such as career fairs, internships, interviews, their first jobs, etc!

We all know interviews as opportunities for recruiters to ask candidates questions and see how they answer them. But demonstrating an ability to go above and beyond by preparing well for an interview reflects really well on who you are as well as the strengths you bring to the table! Here are a handful of preparation steps to help you feel confident for your interview and impress your interviewer!

COMPANY RESEARCH:

Interviewers may ask a question like: “tell me what you know about the company” or “tell me why you want to work for this company.” The WORST thing you can do is not know anything. The second worst thing you can do is answer with random facts like “X company was founded by so-and-so in the year…” Imagine answering “tell me about yourself” with “my name is X, I was born in the year Y, my mom’s name is Z…” Yes, it’s correct information, but it reveals nothing about who you are, just like listing random company facts doesn’t demonstrate an understanding of what value the company provides to society!

• They won’t expect you to know all about them before the interview, but you want to be able to show that you thoughtfully did research on the company!
• A great place to start is knowing what they do, what their values are, what industry they’re in, and what they’ve been up to recently. I typically do this by Googling the company and filtering on “News”. I pick 1–2 headlines that sound interesting to me and give those a quick read. Another good place to find information is a company’s About page.
• Bonus Tip: Try to connect your answer to a personal touch if it feels right (don’t force it!). When I interviewed for 3M, I told them about my tactic of using Post-It notes on my living room wall to help me study for tests growing up — and they loved it! It might seem cheesy, but adding a personal touch can show them that you understand the value of their company! If you don’t have a direct personal connection, no worries: maybe you wrote a paper about them in school, maybe someone you know has worked there and got you excited about the company, or maybe the company recently supported a cause you care about — there are many ways to go about this tactic!

RECRUITER RESEARCH:

This step is totally optional, but it can help you feel relaxed and connected to your interviewer if used correctly (by correctly, I mean in a casual/non-creepy way)! Unless you get an antisocial interviewer (which you shouldn’t since their job is literally to talk to people), an interview should flow like a conversation! This also means that for most interviews, you’ll start with some small talk.

• You’re not only getting a feel for your ability to do a job but your ability to fit in at the company! If you know who will be interviewing you, look them up on LinkedIn and see if you have anything in common with them. You might be able to say something like “I noticed you graduated from Wash U! My dad went there and told me a lot about it. How did you like St. Louis?”
• If this doesn’t feel comfortable to you, no worries at all — you don’t want to force it! Making small talk the regular way is more than fine as well! Thank them for meeting with you, ask how their day has been, ask if they’re from around here, etc!

POSITION RESEARCH:

Make sure to FULLY read and understand the role description! This will be the key to preparing for an interview.

• If they ask you why you want the job, you’ll be able to say which parts of the role would provide you with the experience you’re looking for. If they ask you what drew you to the role, you’ll need to know which parts of the role description actually attracted you. It can also help you anticipate the interview questions you might get (which I’ll talk about more in the Your Own Experience Research section below)!
• Reading the role description can also help you cater your resume to the position — meaning you can prioritize experiences relevant to the position you’re applying to! If you’d like any help doing this, feel free to check out my resume coaching form!

YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE RESEARCH:

“Tell me about a time when…” type of questions are called behavioral questions, and they show up in almost every interview! They demonstrate how you might handle situations that are likely to come up in the role.

• Look at the list of responsibilities in the role description and turn each of them into a behavioral question. For example, if they list “ability to adjust quickly to change”, prepare an answer to “tell me about a time you had to adjust quickly to change.” You don’t have to prepare long explanations ahead of time — I typically take each of the responsibilities they provide and list a few of my applicable experiences under each for reference. Having a few for each can help you avoid repeating experiences across multiple questions!
• You can also use the position description to form your answer to “Tell me about yourself.” This question can be answered by basically giving a high-level overview of your resume, but part of your answer should be focused on the experiences that seem important and relevant to the job you’re applying for. So take a look at your experiences and make a list of the ones that you feel set you up the most to be successful in the role!

COME UP WITH QUESTIONS FOR THEM:

Most interviewers end by asking “What questions do you have for me?” You NEVER want to say you don’t have any questions. There’s no way to fully get the feel for a job in one conversation, so not having any questions might make it look like you weren’t paying attention or that you aren’t interested! The questions you prepare will depend on the interview, and you only need a few. Some of the common questions I tend to ask when interviewing for an internship or job are:

• What professional development opportunities are available to new hires?
• Can you give me an example of previous projects interns have been a part of?
• What additional skills or experiences would make a candidate competitive for this role?
• In your opinion, what would success look like for a new hire 6 months to a year into this role?
• What topics would you recommend for a candidate to learn about ahead of time to allow for a smooth transition into this role?
• What are the next steps in the interview process and is there anything else you need from me at this point?

Check out my post: Questions To Impress Your Interviewer (blog link, Medium link) for my master list of questions to ask an interviewer!

PREPARE A WRAP-UP STATEMENT:

This seems simple, but I’ve had interviews where I panic in the last 30 seconds because I can’t think of a non-awkward way to end the conversation, and it can’t hurt to end the interview in a confident way!

• My go-to is usually something like “well, it was great to meet you! Thanks for taking the time to tell me about this role and I look forward to hearing from you soon! Have a great day!”

FINAL THOUGHTS:

The only other important preparation I would recommend is to not stress too much! You might feel like your success solely depends on your ability to sell yourself to them, but they have to win you over as well, and you were clearly impressive enough for them to invite you for an interview!

• MAKE SURE TO BE YOURSELF! I hate when people say that, but in the case of something that has a strong impact on your future, you want to MAKE SURE you’re finding the opportunity that is the best fit for you, your values, and your goals! So if you’re pretending to be someone you’re not, you might end up in a role better fit for that person you pretended to be, which could lead to unhappiness in the role!

What questions/concerns do you have about interviewing? Let me know in the comments!!

If you’d like more personalized advice on preparing for your interview, feel free to fill out this form or if you would prefer, you can email my professional blog directly at problog@apartfromblonde.com! Good luck!! You got this!!

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